But she knew why. Sometimes, getting on a plane was the only way to shake yourself out of a rut—a rut that you had created and that was slowly eating you up.

*

While she waited for her luggage to pop out of the shoot in Melbourne, Jules peeled off as many layers as she could—coat, sweater, and long-sleeved T-shirt—and stuffed them into her carry-on, still wearing a tank and her jeans. She was also still in her boots, but her flip-flops were packed, and there was no way she was going through the rigmarole of swapping them out at baggage claim.

Her luggage arrived and she cleared customs, then followed signs through the terminal to the Sky Bus. Ash had offered to pick her up, but Jules was fine with finding her own way into the city. She didn’t want to be a burden.

The heat felt glorious when she stepped into the bright sunshine. Her feet prickled with it inside her boots, but the rest of her body was relieved. Her entire life she’d lived in Colorado and every year she dreaded the icy winters. Summers in Boulder were gorgeous—eighty-five degrees, bright blue skies that stretched on forever, light breezes—but the winters were something to be endured.

With her luggage stowed on a rack, she chose an elevated seat in the middle of the bus so she could see out the large window. The first half of the journey was unremarkable, except when the driver pointed out a field next to the highway that was brimming with kangaroos.

Dozens of pointy furry faces with big ears watched as the bus flew by and Jules grinned. Australia, she thought. I’m in Australia! A young couple in front of her spoke rapid Japanese to each other and tried to take photos, but the bus was going too fast.

The second half of the journey revealed glimpses of the skyline and then, after one bend in the highway, the city of Melbourne was revealed, taking up her window and the ones either side. It was nothing like Boulder, or Denver for that matter. Melbourne was dense and tall, with dozens of skyscrapers earning their name. And she’d never seen so many cranes in her life.

There was also a Ferris wheel like the one in London, although it looked out over an industrial area and a giant yard of shipping containers. Somewhere from the back of her mind, she retrieved a memory of Chloe saying that no one went on it because the view was terrible—oh, and one year, the frame had started to crack. She’d avoid it.

Twenty minutes later, Jules regretted turning down Ash’s offer to pick her up from the airport. It was a much longer walk from the bus station to the Docklands apartment than she’d anticipated. She’d looked it up a few days ago, thinking it would be an easy walk, but now she was hot, tired, and cursing herself—and her damned boots.

“I should have caught a cab,” she grumbled.